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Using the sounds she has soaked up traveling and from spots she has called home (Athens, GA, Flagstaff, AZ, Austin, TX and Kauai, Hawaii), Courtney Jaye combines the results of experiences with work from various writing partners. Over the years Courtney has collaborated with Kristen Hall (Sugarland), Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses), Matthew Sweet, comedian Stephen Lynch and members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The environment of new home base Nashville adds to the recording of Love and Forgiveness, the most recent release from Courtney Jaye.

“Every Time We Say Goodbye” enters on a hard beat that stays in place throughout the tune as Courtney’s voice rises above the persistent pounding to question why the relationship needs to have a revolving door installed. “I Thought About It” keeps the tough groove in place as Courtney’s voice takes a flight around the beat and “Ask Me To” strips down to its rhythm as the duet partner for Courtney’s vocal pleas. Love and Forgiveness has a 1960’s feel to the production, a place where Rock’n’Roll and Pop can sit down and feel they are both being heard. The album is a mixture of powerful rhythms and Courtney Jaye’s voice, which has a very female tone that shows its power through determined emotions.

Courtney Jaye’s combination of radiant pop and roots regalia once suggested a style akin to the southern California sound of the early to mid ‘70s. No more though. This time around, her concession to commercial appeal is apparent, in the lavish arrangements and particularly in her sultry singing. Indeed this, her third disc to date, identifies her as something of a chanteuse, an image far removed from the down home designs preferred by her peers.

In interviews regarding her new album Love and Forgiveness, Courtney Jaye has been quoted as saying “I’ve always wanted to find a way to not be afraid of pop. I’m done apologizing for writing big songs.” Jaye (with a helping hand from producer Mike Wrucke) has certainly done that here as fans of 70’s folk-pop will instantly enjoy their surroundings.

Artists like Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt can be heard in all the nooks and crannies, from style to production to song performance. “Every Time We Say Goodbye” sounds like it could have been on the Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid soundtrack, while one of the stronger songs “One Way Conversation” has an instant appeal to any fans of The Band. Album opener “Ask Me To” is full of big hooks and is immediately accessible to current Nashville leaning mainstream fans as is “Morning” with its doo-doo-doo’s.

The slide guitar and vocal layering on the delicate “Summer Rain” are pitch perfect country rock prettiness that Jaye’s heroes would be proud of while the emotional “Say Oh Say” feels more confessional, cutting the sheen off of the hurt turning things personal. The title track contains a cool guitar lick while still focusing on Jaye’s performance, a good combo of everything captured herein and worthy of titling the album.

Jaye’s voice is intriguing, at times it floats high enchanting and other places it can sound thin, almost as if she was experimenting with singing styles (sometimes in the same song) but the lush playing/production and stout writing pulls things through. She just pulled through herself having recovered from a major car accident; Love and Forgiveness finds Jaye going for it with confidence.

Nearly a decade ago, Courtney Jaye was signed to Island/Def Jam by arch-mogul L.A. Reid. She did get to release her folk-pop debut album Traveling Light, but she didn’t feel like she was getting to be herself, which was enough to keep her on her guard for a while against anything that smacked of too much commercial polish.

Jaye’s long since become a well-adjusted Nashville fixture, finding kindred co-writers like Thad Cockrell, lending her luminous voice to Jessie Baylin’s latest and appearing in a JEFF the Brotherhood video. Jaye stretched her legs as a singer, songwriter and Hawaii-infatuated producer on 2010’s The Exotic Sounds of Courtney Jaye, which boasted a duet with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell and a Zach Galifianakis endorsement. Three years and a convalescence after a car wreck later, she’s releasing her best yet, an irresistibly hooky, unabashedly well-crafted roots-pop album called Love and Forgiveness. She’ll celebrate with a Grimey’s in-store today and a full-blown show Friday night at The Stone Fox (more on that in this week’s forthcoming issue of the Scene). Jaye was only too happy to talk with the Cream about everything from her evolved musical philosophy to her Deadhead days.

Exotic Sounds had its hooks, but the ones on Love and Forgiveness are just plain bigger and brighter. You definitely didn’t beat around the bush about pop appeal this time around. Did you have to make peace with the idea of pop music after your unpleasant major label experience in the previous decade?

It wasn’t something I necessarily planned. Obviously my experience with Island [Records] was short-lived. Musically, I got such a taste of what I didn’t want out of a career in such a short span of time. … When I moved to Nashville in 2007, I moved with the intention of really having no intentions. I just moved to town and I wanted to just explore the possibility of writing songs as a job, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. I did that for six months. I would just write with anyone, just that when-you-first-move-to-town kinda thing. You meet someone at a coffee shop: “Let’s get together.” I did that for six months, and in that time wrote a lot of songs and really cultivated some relationships creatively with people that I continue to work with to this day. So I think it was about June of that year I realized, “Oh, there’s a record somewhere in all these songs.” Then I made Exotic Sounds. That was my answer to my major label experience. I got to make this really bizarre Hawaiian country-pop record, and that was something that had been haunting me for many years, since I lived in Hawaii.

So it was sort of a palette cleanser for you?

Yeah, exactly. That record just kind of happened. I went to North Carolina to work with Seth Kauffman. I thought we would just, you know, record a couple songs. But I ended up staying for three weeks. It just evolved. It was just something that naturally happened. Once I got that out, I had to go through some more business woes. I signed a deal with Universal Republic that was again short-lived. Then I finally put Exotic Sounds out on my own in 2010. And it was in that moment that I was able to start thinking like, “Oh, I’m free now. I’ve had this record, it’s been made for a few years. I’m free to think about what I want to do next.” I just went back and revisited a bunch of really old Garage Band demos. I put seven or eight songs that I knew that I liked and I knew would see their day, I put them on this playlist and I listened to them from top to bottom, and it just hit me that it was another record. These songs had this common thread to them that hearkened back to songs that I loved from the ’70s. I just sat there and was like, “This is crazy! There’s a record here! OK, let me finish writing this record.” So that’s what I did.

Nashville based singer/songwriter Courtney Jaye’s third full-length album, Love and Forgiveness, wraps bruised experience in an optimistic sheen for a message that new beginnings are always possible. Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Mike Wrucke (Miranda Lambert, David Nail), Love and Forgiveness recalls the laid-back pop vibe of 1970s California country heard in artists like Neil Young and The Eagles with a decidedly alternative slant.

Courtney’s angelic, high plains vocal and its steady reverb wash fits in well with other female alt-country artists like Neko Case and Jenny Lewis. Through 10 songs, the album, which is due in stores May 7, fills the room with electric guitar shine and earthy rhythms intended to both stimulate and soothe. “One Way Conversation,” built from a strong and pronounced riff, finds that As long as it’s a one-way fight, you’re guaranteed to win. On the stomping “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” Courtney’s melodies trace twinkling guitars as the words, Our love’s a smoking gun / Can’t tell you what we’re running from, seek out a deeper realization. With lush choruses that often stress the positive side of things, reassuring messages in songs like “Morning” and the cosmically-inspired “Stars and Skies” offset the album’s heartbreaking moments.

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May 3, 2013

Love and Forgiveness, the latest album from Nashville-based artist Courtney Jaye is set for release on May 7. Neal Casal, Greg Leisz and Fred Eltringham are among the guests who joined her on the recording, which was produced by Mike Wrucke (Dixie Chicks, Miranda Lambert). This music looks back to the sounds of her favorites artists such as Neil Young, The Band and Fleetwood Mac. Jaye is currently on tour with a three-night stand at New York City’s Gramercy Theater opening tonight.

Courtney Jaye’s new album Love and Forgiveness is a pleasing pop affair that calls to mind the peaceful, easy feeling of ‘70s FM radio. Scheduled for a May 7 release, it’s bound to be one of the most enjoyable records to come out of Nashville this year. On the album’s final track, “New Day,” the sprawling pedal steel guitar almost sounds like clouds lifting. That’s no coincidence. Love and Forgiveness was inspired by a deeply broken heart. Luckily things are looking up, judging from the album’s thoughtful lyrics, bright melodies and optimistic title. Enjoy the CMT Edge world premiere of Courtney Jaye’s “New Day.”

Courtney Jaye channels the 1970s on the upcoming Love and Forgiveness, an album that mixes the SoCal country-rock of Linda Ronstadt with the poppy coo of Dolly Parton. She gets a little help from her friends along the way, fronting an all-star band whose members include Neal Casal on guitar, Greg Leisz on pedal steel, and Wallflowers percussionist Fred Eltringham on drums.

The group locks into a vintage groove on “One Way Conversation,” a song co-written with Nashville’s Thad Cockrell. Jaye originally envisioned the tune as a duet, with Cockrell singing lead on alternate verses. Although she’s the only vocalist on the finished version, the collaborative spirit lives on in the song’s funky strut, which was inspired by another retro group: The Band.

“While recording,” Jaye explains, “the rhythm was the basis from which the entire production of the song was built. We tracked it live, and my only request to drummer Fred Eltringham was to make Levon proud.”